I raised an eyebrow at them, and they shrugged.“I watched every season ofSWAT.I learned a lot.”
“Yeah, you learned that Shemar Moore does a shitload of crunches,” I said with a laugh.“Ash is right.There ain’t a lot of guns in Fairyland, and we don’t have any armor that stops lightning bolts, so we’re better off rolling in light.”
Jarvis looked at the eight guns between four people and then back to me.“This is rolling in light?”
Geri laughed.“You oughta see the amount of shit he carries when he thinks there might be trouble.”
That reminded me of something, and I closed the gun drawer and slid out a smaller drawer underneath it.I pulled out a thick leather belt with a pair of silver-edged kukris hanging from it and clipped a pair of bulky spiked gloves to sides.I hadn’t carried my caestae for a while, but I figured if there was any mission I was going to need iron-banded boxing gloves with spikes on the knuckles, this was it.
Sufficiently geared up, we all headed back inside to see if James was ready to create an interdimensional incident with us yet.
* * *
The big man waved us back through the little half-door separating the lobby from the space where the actual work was done, then guided us into a back room and arranged everyone in a half-circle facing a battered wooden door that would have looked more suited to the kind of abandoned house that had a family of cannibal chainsaw murderers living in it than a passageway to a magical kingdom.I opened my mouth to ask some smartassed question, but a quick jab in the gut from Geri’s needle-sharp elbow put a pause on my stupider instincts.
James stood in front of the door with his shop assistant and the pair clasped hands.They reached out and put their other hands on the surface of the door and bowed their heads.After a few seconds, light started to leak around the edges of the door, which I could have sworn was just leaning up against the wall and wasn’t actually a functioning portal.And maybe most of the time it wasn’t.But something was sure happening, because the light got brighter and brighter until I had to shield my eyes from the glare.
After several seconds of being blinded by the magical light, not the Manfredd Mann kind, James’s voice came from the shadowy outline where his massive frame used to be.“Okay, step into the light.Be careful, because Her Majesty Queen Titania is not expecting you, or any visitors, so your reception might be…somewhat fraught.Be careful, and please try not to break all of Faerie.”
I was a little offended by this.“What gives you the idea we’re gonna break anything?”I asked.
“You’re friends with Quincy Harker,” James replied.“The man is chaos incarnate.Do I need any other reason to be worried?”
“Well, there’s the fact that he’s Bubba,” Geri said brightly.I would have smacked her, but I knew exactly how well-armed she was.We’d pretty much gotten past the part of her life where killing me was her main motivation for everything, but I didn’t want to give her any reason to go back to that place.
“Fine,” I said.“I’ll try not to wreck the magical kingdom.But no promises about not kicking Mab’s ass.”
James laughed, and by the tinkle of laughter from beside him, I guessed his assistant was equally amused.“I don’t think I have to worry about you hurting the Queen of Winter,” he said.“Now step through.I’ve got more appointments tonight, so I can’t stand around holding the door open for you.”
I looked at my team—the psychopath, the douchebro, and Ash, the nonbinary telepathic X-factor—and nodded at them.“Let’s go, gang.We’ve got a wedding to save.”
I walked toward the glowing portal and just as my foot crossed the threshold and the mundane world started to fade around me, I heard Jarvis ask, “Um…how are we supposed to get back?”
And with that very valid question that I had no answer at all for, we crossed over into Fairyland.And stepped out right into a circle of pissed-off faeries in full plate armor holding drawn swords.
I looked at Geri, then at the faerie knights, then at the rest of Team Bubba.There was only one thing to say, so I said it.“Well, shit.”
5
It had been a couple years since we were guests at Titania’s palace, and our accommodations were sincerely lacking this go-round.Well, I reckon they were pretty much the same as our sleeping arrangements the first part of our stay last time, but way worse than the rooms we’d been promoted to once Mama played the Fairy Princess card on Queen Titania.
It seemed that being the grandson of her boy toy did not come with the same privileges that being the daughter of said boy toy and Titania’s greatest rival did, because instead of being lodged in a palatial suite of rooms that would make a Kardashian think the decor was overdone, this time when we teleported right into the courtyard of the castle, we were immediately surrounded by guards, stripped of all our weapons, including my backup pistol, my caestae, and even my pocketknife, and escorted straight into the dungeon without so much as a chance to wave at my dear old granddaddy.
So now we were back in the dungeon, all four of us crammed into one cell, and given a bucket of water to drink.At least this time they gave us another bucket to piss in because I was pretty confident the whole “I need the bathroom” trick wasn’t going to work this time.All that was left to do was wait for either Oberon or Titania to get finished doing whatever faerie monarch shit they were doing and summon us to the throne room where we could plead our case.
The worst part of all of it was that my old friend Corporal Mathis was the lead guard on duty.He was Sergeant Mathis at the beginning of our last visit, but when I snatched his weapon out of his hands without breaking a sweat, he got a field demotion.Judging by the vicious smile on his face, he held a grudge.A big one.
“Welcome back, Grandson of Oberon,” he said, sneering at me through the bars.I noticed he made sure to stay about five feet back, just in case I had some inclination to reach out and touch someone.Violently.
“Thanks for having us,Corporal,” I replied, grinning as the tips of his ears almost glowed in the dim light of the dungeon.“How’s tricks?”
“I am well,” he said, that oily smile sliding across his face again.“You, however, may be about to have a very unrestful evening.Things have changed here in the Summerlands since you last dared cross our borders.Her Majesty is less inclined to forgive trespasses, including those of her Consort, so he holds far less sway than in previous times.”
“Yeah, we heard Obie was in the doghouse,” I said.“Banging the maids again huh?I guess you really can’t teach an old fairy new tricks.What’s Titania got planned for us?We gonna have to hunt down another dragon?”
The sharp intake of breath from Jarvis reminded me that half my team on this trip was completely unfamiliar with my last adventures in Fairyland and were likely to be terrified of the mere idea of hunting down a dragon.I mean, they were right to be, since hunting dragons was pretty goddamned terrifying, but it would help if they could hide the fact that they were scared shitless from the scrawny guard who wanted to make our lives as horrible as possible for as long as possible.
Mathis glared up at me, then apparently remembered which side of the bars he was on and grinned again.“Her Majesty does not often, if ever, see fit to share her intentions with me.I am given an order, and I carry it out.That is my role.”
